


it's easier for you to let me go

by burritosong



Series: yakulev week 2014 [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, Future Fic, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Marriage Proposal, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burritosong/pseuds/burritosong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one with the proposal</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's easier for you to let me go

**Author's Note:**

> for yakulev week day 6: future + minor hurt/comfort  
> title from christina perri's "arms"

Yaku is sweaty and loose-limbed and lying in the wet spot of Lev’s come, damn him. He’s also almost asleep which is why it takes him a moment to respond when Lev says quietly, “Let’s get married.”

"Uh…what?"

Lev twist so that he can look Yaku in the eye, and there’s not mirth or laughter in his face, just the same serious look he has when he says he’s Nekoma’s ace.

"Let’s get married."

Yaku pushes him away so he can sit up, because suddenly he needs space, more space, because everything is too close and he thinks he just might suffocate.

"What?"

Lev sits up too, smiles and takes his hand, and looks for all intents and purposes like he’s found his meaning in life.

"Let’s get married," he repeats a third time, a bit more slowly. "I love you, you love me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"You’re eighteen."

"So?"

"You’re _eighteen_ ,” Yaku repeats. “You’re in _high school_. You haven’t even decided what college you want to go to, how can you possibly know you want to get married?”

He leaves off the _to me_ , even though he’s screaming it inside his head.

"Because I do. Because when I think about my future and what I want my life to be like, no matter what I’m doing, you’re always there with me."

"Lev, you’ve never even dated anyone else. The only reason you want to marry me is because you’ve never been with anyone but me."

"Why would I need to be with anyone else? Isn’t the point of dating to find the person you want to marry? Well I did. I found you. And I don’t want to be with anybody else."

"I…" Yaku pulls his hand away to scrub at his face. "I can’t have this conversation naked."

He stands and makes his way to where he’d tossed his clothes earlier and starts pulling them on as slowly as he can, leaving Lev alone on the bed, naked and looking a little dazed.

Yaku _feels_ dazed. More than a little. He feels completely blindsided by this—he’s not calling it a proposal. He wishes Lev were the type to joke about this sort of thing, but he isn’t. Lev has always taken their relationship seriously, and now Yaku’s wishing he didn’t.

_Married._

He’s never thought—well, no. That’s a lie. He has thought about it. In a distant, nebulous sort of way. But here is Lev, so sure and certain of what he wants for himself—for _them_ —and Yaku is left feeling like the rug’s been pulled right out from under him.

Again.

Because this isn’t the first time that Lev has been ready to move forward, leaving Yaku struggling to keep up.

"Don’t you want to marry me?"

He turns back to look at Lev, so serious and so sure, sitting on the bed easily like he hasn’t just suggested they tie themselves to each other for the rest of their lives.

"I don’t…know? I mean I’ve…" He can’t say he’s never thought about it because now that Lev’s brought it up he can’t get it out of his head. "I guess I do? I mean, I don’t know. Yes…no—maybe? I’m not sure."

"What if we were older? Would you want to marry me then?"

"Maybe?"

Lev looks away, brow furrowed, and Yaku is suddenly reminded of the tall, gangly first year he’d spent countless hours with teaching receives to. He’s taller now, still mostly gangly, but his receives are now some of the best on the team, even though he’s still mostly known for his blocking and spiking. He remembers the Lev of two years ago, shy and blushing when he’d held Yaku’s hand for the first time, who’d been all nervous energy and shaking hands the first time they’d had sex. He had spent so much of their first year together looking to Yaku for guidance, trying to gauge when to do what, how to do everything from kissing to blow jobs.

Yaku wonders exactly when it was, along that way, that Lev had somehow managed to pass him by.

"Then I can wait," Lev says, looking up back up at Yaku.

“ _What?!_ ”

"I’ll wait," he repeats, sitting up a little straighter. "As long as you want to be with me, I want to be with you. Even if that means waiting to get married. Even if that means never getting married. I just want to be with you, as long as I can. And I’m fine doing it on your terms."

"You’ll change your mind."

"No I won’t."

"You’ll get bored."

"I won’t," Lev insists, falling back onto the bed, stretching out his limbs, and remarkably at ease for someone who just proposed only to be turned down.

"You’re going to get tired of waiting for me to want what you want."

"Maybe a little. But nobody’s perfect. I love you even with all your flaws." Lev smiles at him, the way a parent smiles at a child as they explain something simple and obvious, and Yaku’s heart twists in something like love or maybe panic.

"What if I want to break up?"

Lev shrugs. “Then we break up. I can’t force you to be with me. I wouldn’t want to.”

"You’re going to hate me for not wanting what you want."

"You don’t know that."

"Yeah well, you don’t know that."

"Yaku-san, do you not want to be with me?"

Lev’s gaze is piercing, and Yaku can feel it reading all the precious little secrets he’s hidden away.

"I do want to be with you," he admits, because he can’t lie to Lev—not when he looks at him like that. "I want to be with you for a long time. I just…don’t think you won’t change your mind."

"Okay," Lev says, expression softening. "Then I can wait. As long as it takes to convince you. And once I have, I’m going to marry you."

(“It’d be different if you didn’t want to,” Lev says later over the phone when Yaku calls him to complain about the entirety of the Haiba clan calling to congratulate them on their non-existant engagement. “But since you want to, then I just have to wait. We’ll just have a long engagement. It’s okay, my parents don’t mind. They’d actually rather I finish school first.”

"Tell your family to stop calling," Yaku insisted. "Your grandmother wanted to know if we were going to have a traditional Japanese ceremony or if I was going to _convert!_ ”

"Don’t listen to her," Lev assured him. "It’s not as if we could actually have a church wedding, anyway.")

Of course, news always traveled fast at Nekoma, and the same holds true among its alumni. So it’s not long before Kuroo calls him up to congratulate him.

"So I heard the good news. Finally making an honest man out of Lev, huh?"

Yaku groans. “Tell me he didn’t get to you too?”

"Tell me how the proposal went. I know Lev’s a romantic, but you not so much. Please tell me you at least _tried_ to make it good for him.”

“ _I didn’t propose to him._ ”

"Wait, so he proposed to you? And you accepted? With all your commitment issues?"

"I don’t have commitment issues," Yaku snaps.

"You kind of do," Kuroo says. Yaku can feel a headache coming on. "Or are you forgetting that whole ‘you should totally date other people because I’ve got adequacy issues’ freak out last year?"

"I thought I had commitment issues?"

"Oh, you have both. Just don’t forget how miserable the both of you were. Anyone else probably would have dumped you for that stunt, but Lev stuck it out. You can’t keep doing this to him."

"Doing what? Being realistic?"

"Dragging your feet. I’m not saying the two of you should elope tomorrow, but you’ve got to at least give the guy something. He’s completely in love with you, you know."

"That’s just…he doesn’t know what love is," Yaku insists.

"Oh? And you do?"

(The conversation is dropped, or so Yaku thinks. Until a few months later when he’s helping Lev move into his dorm and his new roommate smiles and says, “Oh, so you’re the fiance? I’ve heard so much about you! I can’t believe you’re high school sweethearts, that’s incredible.”

Lev smiles sweetly, completely unperturbed by the daggers Yaku glares at him.)

Yaku gets used to Lev introducing him as his fiance, and eventually gives up correcting him when they’re out together. He tries using it himself, once, but can’t seem to get his mouth to wrap around the word and gives up.

Sometimes though, the entire thing feels claustrophobic.

Like now, just hours before he goes to see his parents. He’s visited their house exactly three times since he graduated high school and moved out, once a year for his grandfather’s birthday. This year is the exception—he’s going back for a second time tomorrow for his grandfather’s funeral.

The circumstances have him already on edge, which is why, when Lev suggests over the phone from his own school hours away, that he go with him for moral support because “that’s what finace’s do,” Yaku loses it a little.

"You are not _my fiance_. We are _not engaged_. When are you going to wake up and realize _we’re never getting married?_ " He’s digging in his closet searching for his black tie, a shoe in one hand and phone in the other, and he throws the shoe in his hand at the wall, frustrated at both Lev and himself. "When are you going to get it through your thick head that _I don’t want to marry you?_ Just break up with me already.”

Yaku sits down on the floor, leaning against his bed, suddenly feeling very tired. On the other side of the phone Lev is quiet for so long that he thinks he must have hung up. Yaku’s lowering the phone from his ear before he speaks again.

"I don’t think we should talk about this right," Lev says, voice thick. "I know you’re upset right now, so we can talk about it when you get back. I love you. Good luck tomorrow."

He hangs up before Yaku has a chance to respond.

Yaku spends that night in a room he hasn’t seen in three years, wishing he had Lev’s familiar warmth pressed to his side. When he’d moved out, he’d taken everything he had an emotional connection to with him, and the result is a bare bedroom filled only with reminders of how miserable he’d been in high school. He spends most of the night staring at the lacy canopy of the bed, which his parents must have put back up after he moved out, as if they could erase him from that room and go back to the days when he had been their precious little darling.

He’s not surprised when his parents and brothers leave for the funeral in the morning without him, especially since he’d been specifically told not to come to the wake the day before and that he was not to stand beside them today, but that doesn’t make it sting any less.

He sits separately from his family, going through the motions of the ceremony without feeling much of anything. He can’t even bring himself to cry, too busy focusing on the black pit of nothingness he feels every time he catches a glimpse of his family.

Afterwards, his sister-in-law approaches him looking uncomfortable.

"They said you can leave now, if you want," she says apologetically.

"Right," he says, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Sorry you got dumped with the unfortunate task of getting rid of me." He wonders if he’ll ever see her again, since his grandfather’s death has left him with no reason to visit his family again.

"I’m sorry for your loss. I know the two of you were close."

"Thank you."

He takes a step back, suddenly desperate to escape from the throng of people around them.

"How have you been?" she asks, suddenly.

Yaku resists the urge to ignore her. “Fine,” he says. “Busy with school and working to pay for school.”

"And what about outside of school?"

“‘Outside of school?’” he echoes, not quite understanding what she’s asking.

"What do you do for fun? Are you…are you dating anyone?"

It’s the first time anyone in has family, other than his grandfather, has bothered asking about his life in a long time. Yaku suddenly finds himself looking at her in a new light, and pitying her for getting stuck with his his family. He was never especially close with his eldest brother, even when he was still on good terms with his family, and he wonders how he managed to trick this decent person into marrying him.

"I’m in the volleyball club, that takes up a lot of time. And…yeah, I’m seeing someone."

"Oh, that’s good! What’s—who…" her voice falters, and Yaku can see the exact moment that she realizes she’s not sure how to phrase what she wants to know.

"His name is Lev," he offers. "Haiba Lev."

"Is it serious?"

He shrugs. “I guess.”

"How long have you two been together?"

"Four years, this October."

"Then you two are high school sweethearts, aren’t you? That’s so romantic!"

Yaku suddenly has a vision of introducing her to Lev, of the two of them bonding over a shared love of all things ridiculously romantic, and teasing him when he rolls his eyes at them. It’s the first time he’s ever wanted to introduce Lev to anyone in his family.

"I guess," he says, trying to scrub the idea from his mind before his actual memories of family can poison it and morph it into something unpleasant. He’s worked hard to keep Lev from these people. One good conversation isn’t going change anything. "You should get back."

"You’re right." She hesitates, before pulling a card out of her purse. "Don’t be a stranger," she says, handing it over. "We are family."

 _No, we’re not_ , Yaku thinks, but he takes the card anyway, crumbles it in his fist as he walks away, feels the sharp edges of it in his hand the entire ride back to his parents house in the cab.

He collects his overnight bag from his old room, and heads back down stairs to the cab waiting to take him to the train station.

The polite thing to do would be to stop by the Haiba’s, to say hello to Lev’s family, but when Yaku thinks of their warmth and love and easy acceptance in comparison to the cold reception he just had from his own family, his stomach turns. He’ll make his apologies later.

The tears hit him halfway through the train ride home, and he spends most of it with his eyes squeezed shut to keep them from escaping.

He climbs the stairs to his apartment slowly, dreading the idea of its emptiness. He’s so caught up in his head, that it takes him a moment to register the sound of the tv and the familiar smell of the Haiba family’s signature soup. He drops his bag on the floor in the entrance with his shoes and makes his way to the living room, loosening his tie, and not quite believing his eyes when he sees Lev sitting on the couch.

"What are you doing here?"

Lev looks up from the book he’s studying. “I thought you might need me after…you know.” He grimaces the way he always does when Yaku’s family comes up. “I made shchi, if you’re hungry. It’s probably not as good as Mom’s, though.”

Yaku hadn’t realized how much he needed this, the familiar smell of Russian food, the reliability of Lev waiting for him, until it was right here in front of him.

He walks over to Lev, collapses on the couch next to him. He can feel the tears welling up again, and this time he can’t stop them.

"I didn’t think I’d see you," he admits. "After what I said, I didn’t think you’d want to come back." He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying uselessly to not cry.

He feels warm arms wrap around him as Lev pulls him close.

"Of course I came back."

"I told you to break up with me," Yaku says into his chest, the memory of his harsh, angry words making him cry even harder.

"I’m not going anywhere," Lev says, his voice a quiet, rumbling promise surrounding Yaku. "As long as you want me, I’m not going to leave you."

Here, in Lev’s arms, promises fresh from his lips, Yaku almost believes it. He closes his eyes and allows himself to pretend that it’s true, so that when Lev does finally leave him, he’ll have this moment to comfort him when he’s alone.

(Yaku has nightmares sometimes, of standing at the edge of a great chasm with Lev by his side, of Lev taking his hand and pulling him to the edge, of trying desperately to drag Lev back up while Lev tries his hardest to pull him down into the bottomless, gaping blackness below.

He tries to tell himself they mean nothing. He’s mostly unconvinced.)

Yaku graduates in March, and the entire Haiba clan comes up to Kyoto for three days to celebrate, in the midst of him packing, having found a job closer to Lev and needing to be moved in to his new place by the end of the month.

It’s a whirlwind of activity and emotion, showing them around the city in between boxing up his things, and Yaku’s both energized and tired when they all head to a restaurant on their last night. He blames that, and the combination of the warmth of Lev at his side and the alcohol in his veins, when he says to Mrs. Haiba, “Mom, pass the sauce.”

He instantly tries to apologize as soon as he realizes what he’s said, but she just smiles and hands over the sauce with a “Here you go, dear,” as if he hasn’t done anything wrong.

He has to immediately excuse himself, because the alternative is to lay his head down on the table and scream in embarrassment. After a few minutes, Lev comes looking for him.

"Hey," he says, bumping his arm against Yaku’s. "You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," Yaku says, leaning against him in the closest show of public affection he’s comfortable with. "Freaked out a little."

"That’s okay, I’m kind of used to it."

They stand there, side by side, in the cold night air for a while before Lev speaks again.

"You know it’s okay, right? To call her mom. I mean, you can call her whatever you want, but none of us mind. You’re part of the family. Even if we’re not…married." There’s a hint of disappointment in Lev’s voice on the last word.

"Are you mad about that? The—the not married part?" Yaku can barely even say it.

Lev doesn’t answer for a long time, and Yaku’s begun to wonder if he even heard him when he finally does talk.

"A little," he admits. "I always thought when I was a kid, that I’d meet the right person and they’d sweep me off my feet, and we’d get married and have a family together. But as much as I want that, I’d rather have you. I don’t think I could be happy without you, even if I was offered everything else I wanted. It wouldn’t be worth it without you by my side." He glances down at Yaku with a lopsided smile. "Sorry, you probably think I’m stupid for thinking that."

"That’s not stupid, Lev."

_I know exactly how you feel._

Yaku holds out his hand. “Come on. We’re keeping your—our family waiting.”

(Yaku stops fighting it and gives in to the Haiba clan. Fully absorbed, they become Mom and Dad and his brothers and sisters. He starts learning Russian, and soon he and Lev’s maternal grandmother are sharing whispered gossip in a cross of broken Russian and Japanese at family gatherings.

Lev is very put out to discover that Yaku has usurped his position as most spoiled and favored grandson.)

Once Yaku moves back to Tokyo, Lev stops living in his dorm and starts living in Yaku’s apartment. He gives up on correcting Lev when he calls it home, and finds himself looking forward each day to coming home from work to find Lev hunched over his homework, tv on in the background, and the smell of dinner wafting through the air.

He especially likes waking up every morning, to see Lev tangled in the sheets beside him.

They spend the next two years like that, and Kuroo chides Yaku for keeping Lev in an awkward sort of limbo.

"Just ask him to move in with you already," he says every time they speak. "He practically does anyway. It’s not fair of you to keep him hanging like this for all these years."

He knows it, knows it isn’t fair and that he’s being selfish, by wanting to keep things the way they are. And yet, even after six years, he finds himself hesitating. It’s easy for Lev to say he wants something when it seems out of reach. But Yaku can’t help but fear that once Lev has it he’ll realize he doesn’t actually want it—or Yaku. It’s easy to romanticize something when it’s a far off idea, an incorporeal concept. But the reality of a thing rarely lives up to the fantasy, and Yaku can’t bear to see that disappointment etched on Lev’s face.

But Kuroo’s right, something has to change and it’s about time Yaku did something for Lev.

Which is why he makes reservations at a romantic restaurant, the likes of which come complete with lit candles on every table, and buys a dozen red roses. All because Lev likes that sort of gross, romantic cliche shit.

The restaurant even has a live orchestral trio playing, two violins and a cello, and when they walk in Lev absolutely loves it.

With two weeks left until he graduates, Yaku had told Lev this was an earlier celebratory dinner, so that they could do something with just the two of them before Lev’s extended family descended from Russia. It’s partly true, anyway.

The rest of the truth is that tonight is The Night. The night when Yaku finally takes their relationship to that next level that Lev’s been yearning for.

He wipes his palms on his pants and reaches across the table to take Lev’s hand.

"Lev," he says, trying to remember to smile.

Lev leans forward, looking entirely, for lack of a better word, completely smitten. And Yaku’s stomach twists at the thought that Lev could still look at him like that after six years. “Yes, Yaku?”

"We’ve been together for a while…"

"Yes, we have," Lev agrees, quickly.

"And you’ve basically moved into my apartment. You’ve had a dorm, but you haven’t really lived there. We share a closet, we do each other’s laundry, we’re basically disgustingly domestic together. And to be completely honest, I’ve really enjoyed these last two years."

"I have, too," Lev says. "I’ve really enjoyed it, Ya—Morisuke."

Yaku has to take a moment, so glad that they’re on the same page that a bubble of laughter escapes him.

"Good, good. I’m glad. That…that really means a lot to me, Lev. So this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you." Yaku reaches into his jacket, and pulls his reason for tonight out of his pocket.

"Yes!" Lev shouts. "Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely, yes. I didn’t think you’d ever ask."

"Really?" Yaku pulls out the copy of his rental agreement he’d had made earlier that day. "That’s great. I already arranged a meeting with my landlord and—"

"Wait—"

Yaku glances up from the papers to look at Lev, and his heart drops. His excitement has completely vanished, and he now looks confused and disappointed.

"You’re asking me to move in with you?"

"And putting your name on the rental," Yaku says, trying to ignore the growing feeling of apprehension crawling up his neck.

"Yaku," Lev says, mouth twisting downward, "I already live with you."

"Yes, but not officially, and this is going to put your name on—"

"Yaku-san, this isn’t what I want." Lev says quietly, before placing his napkin on the table and standing. "I…have to go. I’ll see you later."

He walks away, and Yaku’s left there alone, with two half-eaten meals and the realization that he’ll never be what Lev wants.

(The funny thing is, Yaku has the ring. Not just _a_ ring, but _the_ ring. He’d bought it months ago, uncharacteristically on a whim. It’s a simple gold band, with no embellishment, because as much as Lev wants an ornate, fancy ring, no combination of stone or carving could compare to Lev.

Buying it had seemed so simple, but then Yaku had seen Lev and his nerve had flown out the window. So he resigns himself to hiding it in the back of a drawer for the rest of who knows how long. He takes it out sometimes, thinks about what would happen, what he could have, if he were a braver, better person.)

A week passes, and Yaku spends every part of it that he isn’t at work for on Kuroo’s couch, unwilling to go back to his apartment for fear bumping into Lev—or worse, not.

On the eighth day Kuroo wakes him up by bodily picking him up and literally throwing him out.

"Enough sulking! Go home and call him, or don’t and regret it. But I’m sick of seeing you your sorry, moping ass."

Yaku stares up at him from the ground, barely awake and struggling to keep up with what’s going on. Several half-formed replies drift through his brain but he settles on, “You’re kind of a shitty friend, kicking me when I’m down.”

"No, I’d be a shitty friend if I indulged your disgusting little pity party. Now stop feeling sorry about yourself and start thinking about Lev. You know? Your boyfriend? The man you love? Whose heart you just broke?"

Yaku tries looking pitiable, in the hopes that Kuroo will relent.

He gets a kick in the ass instead.

"Yeah, nice try but Lev does a much better sad puppy look than you," Kuroo says before slamming the door in his face.

"Yeah well you’re a shitty friend too," Yaku mutters to the door.

He manages to stumble back home, scowling as soon as he realizes Lev isn’t there. There are fresh dishes in the sink though, suggesting that Lev had been there recently.

That’s…good, Yaku thinks. He isn’t quite sure.

He’s got the day off work, and he debates climbing into bed and staying there, but that isn’t exactly the picture he wants Lev to find if he comes back.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes with a text message.

_Stop waffling like a twelve year-old with their first crush and do something._

"Gee, thanks for the advice, Kuroo," Yaku says out loud, not bothering to reply.

He washes the dishes, and picks up a few things that Lev had left out of place, before taking a shower. After getting dressed, he pulls the fucking ring out of the drawer and puts it on the coffee table in the living room, and spends the next few hours glaring at it in.

Finally, he hears the familiar sound of a key turning in the lock. He debates, for a brief moment, of jumping out the window to avoid the inevitable confrontation, but dismisses the idea. He’ll take whatever Lev has for him. He deserves that much.

"Oh, you’re here," Lev says.

"Yeah."

"Kuroo said you’d show up today, I didn’t really believe him."

"Well, here I am."

Neither of them knows what to say, and the silence stretches between them, thick and heavy.

Yaku can’t tear his eyes away from Lev. He looks good. He’s always looked good, but Yaku hadn’t quite realized how much he’d missed him over the last week until he saw him walk through the door.

"Can we talk?" Yaku finally asks.

Lev’s still hovering in the entrance. “Sure, fine,” he says, finally kicking his shoes off.

He crosses to sit next to Yaku on the couch. There’s only a few centimeters between them, but it feels like kilometers.

"I’m sorry for the other night," Yaku says, suddenly unable to look at Lev. "I guess I made you think that I was going to do something different than what I really was, and I’m sorry. You know I wouldn’t intentionally lead you on."

"Apology accepted," Lev says, a bit too stiffly for Yaku’s taste.

"And I wanted to give you this," Yaku reaches over and picks the ring box up, passing it over to Lev.

He doesn’t take it.

"I’ve seen it."

Yaku almost drops the box.

"You what?"

"I said _I’ve seen it_ ,” Lev snaps. “How dumb do you think I am? I put away the laundry all the time. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice a fucking ring in your drawer?”

Yaku reels back as if Lev had physically lashed out at him. It’s rare for Lev to curse, and Yaku could count on one hand the number of times he’s heard Lev raise his voice in anger in all the years he’s known him.

"You knew I bought this?"

“ _Yes._ Why do you think I thought you were going to propose?”

"I just thought…I don’t really know," Yaku admits, because he’s been struggling to keep up with Lev for years.

"I found the ring, and I kept _waiting_ and _waiting_ , and then you take me out to a nice restaurant and buy me roses—what was I supposed to think?”

"I don’t know."

"No, you don’t know. Because this is all just meaningless to you, isn’t it?" Lev scrubs a hand across his eyes to wipe away the tears starting form.

"It isn’t _meaningless_ —”

“ _Yes it is_. Because you don’t understand how _important_ this is to me, how important it’s _always been_.”

"So explain it to me!"

"I love you! I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you! How is that so hard to understand?"

"Because I don’t!"

"Six—we’ve been together six years," Lev hiccups. "Six years of me putting up with you pushing me away and fighting me every time I’ve tried to move this relationship forward and telling me to go when all I want to do is _stay_. If you don’t think I love you then I don’t know what to say to you.” He scrubs at his face again.

"That’s not it. I _know_ you love me. I just—” Yaku takes a shaky breath. “I just don’t understand why.”

Lev finally turns to look at Yaku.

"Oh, _Morisuke_ ,” he says.

He reaches out and tentatively takes Yaku’s hand. When he doesn’t pull away, Lev pulls him into his arms.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize."

"Why?" Yaku says, words turning into a sob.

"Because you’re the kindest, most caring person I’ve ever known, even if you don’t realize it. Because you put up with all of the dumb jokes I said and all the mistakes I made, and you still want to be with me." Lev pulls back just enough to look Yaku in the eyes. "Because you pushed me to think for myself when all I wanted to do was follow you. Because I love the way you look standing in my parents’ kitchen washing dishes.

"You are reliable and smart and really fucking sexy when you roll your eyes at me. You taught yourself Russian just so you could talk to my grandmother when she visits, and you spent eight months crocheting a doily for her, and I really don’t know how I could not love someone who did that.

"And because," Lev said, wiping away Yaku’s tears, "from the very first day we met, whenever you put your arms around me, I feel like I’m home."

Yaku snorts. “What dumbass movie did you pull that from?”

"No movie, no matter who wrote it, could possibly come close to what I feel for you," Lev promises with a smile.

"Yeah, whatever," Yaku says, but there’s the smallest up-turn to his lips.

"Really, really." Lev kissed him softly. "I love you. And I am going to spend the rest of our lives convincing you that you deserve it. Because you do. You absolutely do."

Later that night, after they’ve talked and cried a lot more, Lev chastises him for disappearing.

"Not a call, not a text—you could have been dead for all I knew. If it weren’t for Kuroo letting me know where you were, I would have called the police!" He climbs into their bed beside Yaku and stabs a finger at his chest. "Never do that again," he says, punctuating each word with a sharp jab.

"Sorry," Yaku says, because he really is.

(After they’ve been lying in the dark for a while, he gets back up and fetches the ring from where it was left in the living room.

"I really do want you to have it," he says, sliding it onto Lev’s finger.

"No," Lev says gently, tugging it off and handing it back. "Not yet. When you’re ready—really ready. And not a moment sooner. I can wait.")

They do sign a rental agreement together, albeit one for a different apartment.

It’s slightly larger, with larger windows and an extra bedroom (“For when my parents visit,” Lev had said. “They live less than thirty minutes away,” Yaku argued. “For _babushka_ then,” Lev said with a shrug. “Or maybe some kids.” And Yaku’s blood had run cold.)

Lev insists that they decorate the place together, even though Yaku still has all the furniture from his last apartment, and they spend several days visiting every furniture and interior decorating store within reasonable distance, and few well outside it simply because Lev heard they “have good deals, so why not?”

Yaku leaves it up to Lev to pick all the paint colors and drapes, and fully expects end product to look like a terrible mishmash of modern office and children’s play area. He’s pleasantly surprised to find that Lev’s chosen warm yet fairly neutral colors, and nothing that looks like it came out of a toy store.

"I am an adult, Yaku-san," Lev points out, statement ruined by the fact that he says it with a pout while dripping popsicle all over himself.

Yaku looks at him, in cut off shorts that show off his long legs and frayed Nekoma sweatshirt and thinks, _I can’t wait to marry this man_ , startling himself with the revelation.

They’re both adults with respectable jobs, Yaku at an architecture firm and Lev at a preschool, but that doesn’t stop them from christening their new place by having sex on every surface they can, and for the next few months Yaku enjoys casually bringing it up whenever Kuroo is over, causing Lev to turn into a blushing, stuttering mess in a pathetic attempt to deny it all.

On their days off, Lev makes him breakfast, and they sit quietly at the table they chose together, legs tangled together, and all Yaku can think is, _I love you so much_.

(His nightmares have mostly faded away, but sometimes he finds himself standing at the edge of a familiar chasm, Lev by his side as ever. It all seems much less menacing now though, and Lev has stopped trying to pull him over the edge. Instead, they simply stand there, looking down below together. Until one night, when it changes again, and Yaku jumps, Lev following as he always has.)

They’ve had their apartment a little over three years, when Yaku pulls the ring out again, nine years to the day that Lev first asked him out. The last few years have been filled with friends’ weddings, Lev chasing bouquets, and looking to him with each one caught. He’s been true to his word, waiting for Yaku to catch up to him, but he hasn’t let go of his own dreams either. Yaku’s seen the scrapbook shoved under their bed, filled with cut outs from wedding magazines and business cards for vendors collected from married friends over the years.

Yaku figures that after nine years of patience, it’s about time Lev got what he wanted.

(The first picture of them as a properly engaged couple is taken by Lev’s oldest sister. Lev’s face is blotchy red and tear-streaked, and Yaku isn’t even looking at the camera. Their wedding pictures aren’t much better.

Neither of them care.)


End file.
